Despite not being much of a traveler himself,

Verne unleashed the adventurousness and ver-

satility of his own imagination to describe some

of the greatest expeditions in literature across

an astonishing output of 60 novels.

He reached the peak of his career in 1872, when

an avid readership awaited the next plot twist in

his novel Around the World in 80 Days. First pub-

lished in installments, it recounted how Phileas

Fogg and his assistant Passepartout risked all to

win their 80-day wager against impossible odds.

Verne was, however, much more than a prolific

creator of blockbusters. He was a child of the

industrial revolution, whose tales fascinated

his readers by speculating on where technology

would take humanity next, and asking if ma-

chines will change humanity for better or worse.

Finding the Formula

Jules Verne was born in 1828 in the river port of

Nantes, in western France. His parents—Cath-

olic, conservative, middle class—provided him

with a happy childhood. The

Atlantic coast and the

mighty Loire River of

his hometown shaped his childhood, and he

learned to sail and love boats. With a decent

education behind him and then a spell in Paris

to study law, it was assumed he would bury him-

self in the family legal practice for the rest of his

days.

Instead, he began to construct a network

among the city’s literary set. He was also in

the French capital to witness the revolution of

1848, a brief, ultimately unsuccessful struggle

for radical improvements to better labor and

democratic rights that swept Europe. A 1971 es-

say by historian Jean Chesneaux suggests that

these events had a deep impression on Verne,

and that the adventures of which he later wrote

were, in part, a symbol of political freedom to the

author. Chesneaux also saw revolutionary traits

in Verne’s later creation, the reclusive Captain

Nemo of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

Having told his parents he would not be pur-

suing a legal career, his life as a writer got off to

a somewhat rocky start. Over the next few years

he wrote a series of plays, only four of which were

performed, with little success.

He also got married. His bride was a widow

T

he human mind,” observes the narrator of Twenty Thou-

sand Leagues Under the Sea, “is naturally drawn to gran-

diose notions.” And notions do not come much more

grandiose than those dreamed up by that narrator’s

creator, considered the father of science fiction. From the center of

the Earth to the surface of the moon, Jules Verne described envi-

ronments where no one had been, but that everyone wanted to see.

TALES

OF THE

FUTURE

1828

Jules Verne is born on

February 8, in Nantes, a

bustling port city on the

Loire River in western

France, the son of a lawyer.

1847

He moves to Paris to study

law. There, he witnesses the

revolution of 1848, meets

literary figures, and decides

to become a writer.

VICTORIA, THE HOT-AIR BALLOON FEATURED IN THE FIRST EDITION OF VERNE’S

1863 NOVEL, FIVE WEEKS IN A BALLOON, HIS FIRST LITERARY HIT

ALBUM/AKG IMAGES